From Killeedy in West Limerick, Tim O’Connor is a former Senior Diplomat of the Department of Foreign Affairs (1979-2007) and a former Secretary General (Chief of Staff) to the President of Ireland (2007-2010). Most of his career was spent working on the Northern Ireland Peace Process. He was a member of the Irish Government Talks Team for the Good Friday Agreement in 1998 and was the inaugural Joint Secretary (Chief of Staff) of the North/South Ministerial Council, established by the Agreement to oversee cross-border co-operation on the island of Ireland, from 1999 to 2005. His overseas postings included the Embassies of Ireland in Germany and the US, and he was Consul General of Ireland to New York from 2005-07 with the rank of Ambassador.

Since his retirement from the public service in 2010, Tim has combined running his own advisory business with several voluntary, not-for-profit positions. The latter have included serving as Chair of the Government-appointed Implementation Advisory Group which designed the template for the Directly Elected Mayor of Limerick project. He was also Chair of the Transition Board of Golf Ireland, which established a single governing body for Golf on the island of Ireland. He spent eight years on the Board of Humanitarian NGO GOAL, and is currently also a member of the Committee of the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Autumn School in Bruff, which celebrates the deep connection of the famed Fitzgerald Kennedy clan to County Limerick. Tim is also currently the Government of Ireland Representative on the Independent Reporting Commission on Paramilitarism in Northern Ireland.

Tim holds honorary doctorates from Maynooth University (2005), Quinnipiac University (Connecticut, USA) (2007), the University of Ulster (2009) and University College Dublin (2016) and is an Honorary Professor of Practice at Queen’s University Belfast since 2022.